VISITS TO ABERDEEN FRIENDSHIP. 369 



cipated from the unpromising beginning. Of course, the 

 fine umbrella, well-crossed tie, and small square parcel 

 were not from the life ; but the face was clearly taken, the 

 light falling well on the countenance, which, however, showed 

 traces of weariness and of John's distrust of the whole 

 process. Otherwise, it gave a fair representation, it seems, 

 of the man as he then appeared in his seventy-second yean 



John was photographed again in full homely guise in 

 1878, twelve years after, when he was eighty-four, while 

 seated in front of his own garden at Droughsburn, clad in 

 his weaving dress, after he had become famous. 



Charles Black was delighted to receive the likeness of 

 his friend, and wrote to him in acknowledgment.* 



That same year, 1866, a great meeting took place in 

 London, on the 22nd of May an International Botanical 

 Congress, which it would have immensely gratified the 

 old botanist to have seen ; as showing that the subject he 

 loved was rising in dignity and worthily taking its place 

 beside the advancing sciences of the time, since it began 

 to take steps in the true direction under his early master, 

 Tournefort. 



A friend he never failed to visit in Aberdeen was 

 William Beveridge, in whose father's house at the Craigh, 

 he used to spend the bright evenings on the braes of 

 Tough. When Mr. Beveridge succeeded his father in the 

 farm and developed his genius, and had become the broad- 

 hearted, kindly man he is, he used to relish John's visits ex- 

 ceedingly, after John had settled down at Droughsburn, and 



* The admirable etching that forms the frontispiece, is taken 

 partly from both portraits the head and face from that secured in 

 1866, and the body from that of 1878. 



2 B 



